journey and flower game

Journey is now on Steam, includes Flower free for the next two weeks

Thatgamecompany's critically acclaimed exploration game debuted on PC via the Epic Games Store last year.

After a year of exclusivity on the Epic Games Store, Journey , thatgamecompany's acclaimed game of exploration in the desert, is now available on Steam . And not only that—for the next two weeks, publisher Annapurna Interactive is throwing in a free copy of thatgamecompany's previous release, the also critically acclaimed Flower .

Now available on @Steam: JOURNEY from @thatgamecompany. BONUS: For the next two weeks, FLOWER will also be included for free!https://t.co/Wot38i3kPo June 11, 2020

Journey sets players off as a robed figure in a great desert, on a path leading toward a distant mountain. It's a linear experience across multiple levels, with some gentle puzzles to solve and occasional encounters with other human players on their own journeys; you'll spend most of your time walking but you can also fly briefly, thanks to the powers of a magic scarf. As Shaun noted in April, "It's a simple concept, but the execution is gorgeous ."

Flower, originally released in 2009, is conceptually similar: You are " an invisible petal wizard ," as Jody aptly described it, blowing flower petals across idyllic, breezy landscapes. There are no enemies, scoring, or anything else, really—it's just meditative, musical exploration. 

Journey is currently on sale on Steam for $11/£8.50/€9, until July 9. It also remains available on the Epic Games Store , but it's not on sale there.

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

The recent ultra-violent RoboCop FPS that lets you atomise the skulls of criminal scum is going for a fraction of full price

Telltale heaves a long, dog-tired sigh at 'unsubstantiated Reddit threads', reassures fans that The Wolf Among Us 2 is still being made, honest

The boxing game that only exists because most big publishers won't touch the sport has now sold over a million copies

Most Popular

• 2 Best mini PCs in 2024: The compact computers I love the most
• 3 Best 14-inch gaming laptop in 2024: The top compact gaming laptops I've held in these hands
• 4 Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2024: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I've tested
• 5 Best RAM for gaming in 2024: I've tested the best DDR4 and DDR5 RAM to find the right kits for you
• 2 Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is a teenage (wet) dream
• 3 Beyerdynamic MMX 330 Pro gaming headset review
• 4 Intel Core Ultra 9 285K review
• 5 Intel Core Ultra 5 245K review

• The Inventory
• Entertainment
• Tips & Guides

Journey, From The Creators Of flOw and Flower, Explained

flOw and Flower developer thatgamecompany is making something new, Journey , a game that's about singing, sand, hiking, cloth, surfing, astronauts and feeling small. And, in a radical departure for the team, it uses two whole buttons.

Suggested Reading

Journey is a multiplayer online adventure for the PlayStation 3 that aims to explore the emotional palette that its peers don't, said thatgamecompany game designer Jenova Chen. He says he was inspired by a player's feeling of empowerment, both in real life and in video games. In the real world, human beings are capable of knowing so much and being in constant communication, thanks to technology. In video games, players feel godlike in the way that they wield power, whether by firing a rocket launcher or the invulnerability of playing as a virtual character.

Related Content

It was further inspired by the works of Joseph Campbell and a lunch with astronaut Charles F. Bolden, Jr. Bolden, says Chen, relayed stories to the game designer about the spiritual awakenings of some of his Space Shuttle colleagues—previously "hardcore atheists"—after having spent some time on the moon, seeing Earth from such a great distance.

Chen called it "awe towards the unknown."

There are many unknowns in Journey. Chen wouldn't tell us much about the game's story or ultimate goal, but he did tell us about its key mechanics. Journey is a game about exploring a world covered with and flowing with sand. Players, as the spindly character wearing a red robe, can walk, run and jump around the world. They can "surf" down sand dunes, ride waves of rippling sand and even draw sketches in it with their feet. Chen confirms that people have already drawn penises in Journey's sand.

Journey, Chen says, is as much a virtual hike as it is a story-driven adventure. It's a story told without language, through symbols and secrets and glyphs. Those symbols can be seen on stone pillars and banners scattered throughout the world, and some will be delivered by other entities.

The PlayStation 3 game's other big gameplay system is cloth. The player's robes flow naturally in the wind, as do banners, flags and floating strips of fabric scattered throughout the world. Some are puzzles, some are clues.

In one sequence, we watched Chen jump up onto a trio of long ribbons flapping in the wind. They acted as platforming devices, turning from white cloth to red, covered in glyphs, when the player stepped on them. After walking across all three, a stream of fabric poured out of a rocky relic, forming a bridge.

In another sequence, Chen guided the player behind a series of sandy waterfalls, finding a huge banner, covered in glyphs. How all these items will inform the player is something of a mystery.

Near the end of the demo, in an area that wasn't so sandy and featured a blue sky, we ran into one of Journey's helpers. It was a white statue that emitted chunky, floating glyphs made of light. Those glyphs then redecorated the player's robe with a new design. Chen didn't clearly explain what this meant, saying it could be related to aging, your score, a status symbol or some type of new ability.

One ability that we haven't addressed is the singing. It will help the player collect strips of fabric that are nearby and will "harmonize with other cloth players in the world," Chen says.

Journey's journey is one toward a mountain. It's a brightly lit goal far in the distance that you'll reach by observing and figuring out surfaces. You'll ride sand and fly in getting to the mountain, Chen says, with the game's enemies consisting of "obstacles that are proposed by nature."

Along the way, you'll see side attractions, run into fellow hikers in the world of Journey and solve puzzles together. You won't verbally communicate with them. The game can be both competitive and cooperative, Chen says, if players choose to play it that way. There's an end goal to Journey, it's persistent and the hidden mysteries of the world encourage multiple playthroughs.

Chen described Journey as many things, including a "very good gallery or museum" and a way to form a "genuine connection" with other players.

While it sounds like Journey is still in the process of figuring itself out, in some ways, the game isn't due until (hopefully) next year.

Click to view

thatgamecompany

life’s companions

Experience the wonder in this anonymous adventure where you travel on a life’s passage, with the chance to connect with companions along the way.

a mysterious world

Alone and surrounded by miles of burning, sprawling desert, you soon discover the looming mountaintop is your goal. The passage will not be easy but this experience of a lifetime will help you discover who you are, what this place is, as you arrive at your purpose.

beautiful art and music

Soar above ruins and glide across sands as you explore the secrets of a forgotten civilization.  Featuring stunning visuals, haunting music, and unique online gameplay, Journey delivers an experience like no other.

The release of Journey attracted over 100+ industry awards and media accolades, with some naming the game as their ‘Game of The Year’ in 2012.

"A glorious, thoughtful, moving masterpiece"

- entertainment weekly, "mysterious and beautiful", "an incredible, emotional game", "one of the most amazing game experiences of my life", - gamesradar.

© 2012 Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC. Developed by thatgamecompany. Journey is a trademark of Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC.

Sign in to add this item to your wishlist, follow it, or mark it as ignored

Buy Annapurna Interactive Collection BUNDLE (?)

Includes 32 items: Stray , Cocoon , Neon White , What Remains of Edith Finch , Outer Wilds , Journey , Storyteller , Sayonara Wild Hearts , Donut County , Mundaun , Solar Ash , Hohokum , The Pathless , Twelve Minutes , The Artful Escape , Last Stop , Gorogoa , A Memoir Blue , Maquette , Wattam , Ashen , Florence , I Am Dead , The Unfinished Swan , If Found , Telling Lies , Flower , Hindsight , Thirsty Suitors , Open Roads , Lorelei and the Laser Eyes , Flock

Buy Journey & Flower Bundle BUNDLE (?)

Includes 2 items: Flower , Journey

“Within the framework of its goals, it is masterful, and it is masterful every time I play it again. Brevity enables focus, and its unexpected turns, surprising tonal themes, and climactic scenes all hit just as hard on my fifth replay as they did my first time through.” 9.5/10 – IGN “The sheer simplicity of flower makes it a difficult game not to fall in love with. It’s a relaxing, calming, and curiously moving experience that has the power to change the way that you look at the outside world.” 10/10 – Push Square “Just chill out, man, and do your thing. Enjoy the ride – because this is what this rather abstract game is all about.” 10/10 – US Gamer

About This Game

System requirements.

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10
• Processor: Intel Core i3-2125 or AMD A8-5600K
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Graphics: Intel Iris Pro 580 or GeForce GTX 650 or AMD Radeon R7
• DirectX: Version 11
• Additional Notes: Must support AVX Instruction Set.
• Processor: Intel Core i7-3770 or AMD FX-8350
• Graphics: GeForce GTX 750 Ti or Radeon R9 270

© 2009-2019 Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC. Flower is a trademark of Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC. Developed by thatgamecompany. Conversion development by Inline Assembly Ltd. Published by Annapurna Interactive.

What Curators Say

Customer reviews for flower.

You can use this widget-maker to generate a bit of HTML that can be embedded in your website to easily allow customers to purchase this game on Steam.

Enter up to 375 characters to add a description to your widget:

Copy and paste the HTML below into your website to make the above widget appear

Popular user-defined tags for this product: (?)

Sign in to add your own tags to this product.

• Collections
• Subscriptions

Journey™ Collector’s Edition

• Online play optional
• 2 online players
• Remote Play supported
• PS4 Version DUALSHOCK 4 vibration

Global player ratings

Soar above ruins and glide across sands as you explore an ancient world where life once flourished. With stunning visuals, haunting music and unique online gameplay, Journey™ delivers an experience like no other. • Winner of five BAFTAs, including Game Design and Artistic Achievement. • Grammy-nominated soundtrack composed by Austin Wintory. • This Collector’s Edition includes flOw™ and Flower™ – two equally innovative games from the same team, thatgamecompany.

• PG Connects
• BigIndiePitch.com

How Journey's successor Sky: Children of the Light evolves the formula

Flow, Flower, and Journey all lead to Sky

Upon turning on Sky: Children of the Light for the first time, things felt familiar. I've played Flow, Flower, and Journey, all several times, and unlike the distinct evolutions in presentation and execution that we'd seen before, Sky feels familiar.

In Flow, we saw the beginnings of life, and how it can slowly ascend (or descend) from nothing to something more powerful than where it began. Flower showed us a similar concept, but with life harboring life, and spreading it across the land.

Then finally, with Journey, we saw the end. A seemingly endless march towards an imposing mountain and no salvation found at any point, only a culmination of where life leads, which is not always as exciting as where it begins.

With thatgamecompany's three previous games, they have chronicled life itself, from a basic, molecular state, to the conclusion of a once-great society. So it's only natural that Sky: Children of the Light takes that premise and goes even further with it.

To be clear, I haven't seen everything that Sky has to offer, but I want to. With a gorgeous style of presentation and fascinating world, I want to see everything and explore every inch. And that's a darn good sign, but as for the developer's intentions or how the game concludes, I can't possibly comment. Only speculate.

The intro to Sky feels like Journey. We have a third-person game, a character with a flowing cape, and the ability to beep and glide around our surroundings. Yep, that's definitely a lot like Journey, and it the way the game feels doesn't give you that impression, then the way it looks will, with the intro section being set on a vast section of sand, with small monument with flowing ribbons tied to them guiding you forward.

But quickly, things change. Although it plays similarly to Journey, and even has some aesthetic similarities, it quickly became obvious to me that this wasn't trying to evoke the impression of a sequel to Journey, but instead a successor to that theme of life itself.

Spoiler alert for Journey.

Journey wraps up with a climactic and memorable flight through the heavens. At the end of life, we find salvation, or so Journey believes. Here we find our friends, our allies, and peace.

And I believe that's where Sky begins. After all, you begin in the Sky, with the flight capabilities you built up over the course of Journey with you from the beginning. And this is neither a solemn pilgrimage with a single friend nor a stroll through a forgotten land. It's a trip through the tales of life itself.

While Journey had multiplayer capabilities, allowing you to team up with a single person online to guide you through, Sky has it in spades, with similar-looking child characters wandering around all over the place, allowing you to contact and communicate with them.

Some puzzles I've seen even require attempting to communicate with and organize with other players online. As of right now, that seems difficult honestly, but I believe this doubling-down on multiplayer features could lead to some incredible and memorable gaming moments, just as Journey had done years ago.

While exploring Sky you won't just come across other players, but spirits too. You will follow spirits, and they will show you their last moments, their last wishes, their regrets, and then give you the strength to continue onward, along with the ability to understand their emotions.

We aren't spreading life, or telling the tale of our lives, we are instead remembering those who are gone. Comforting spirits that have long since lost their chance, and bringing them the understanding they might have never experienced otherwise. It's haunting, quiet, and evocative all at once.

I believe Sky is showing us life's end, by telling us about the different experiences we all have in life. Sky: Children of the Light is nothing like any game I've played before, but it is absolutely essential to play.